Mental Flosshttp://mentalfloss.com/node/17560/atom.xml2015-03-31T22:08:39+00:00http://mentalfloss.com/article/17560/first-time-news-was-fit-print-xx2007-12-10T19:17:12+00:002007-12-10T19:17:12+00:00The First Time News Was Fit To Print, XXJason

Every Monday, mental_floss finds the first time The New York Times mentioned select topics. If you have a suggestion for our next episode, leave us a comment.

Wrestlemania

Is it Wrestling or Theater? Make no mistake. Professional wrestling is low comedy, but it has become thoroughly respectable. These days it increasingly attracts a mixed, middle-class crowd, with audiences up a full third over last year. The most recent ''WrestleMania'' in March drew an overflow crowd of 25,000 to Madison Square Garden, while an estimated one million others watched the show on closed-circuit television throughout the country and many more in 24 nations abroad. Scalpers were demanding $100 a ticket to see Hulk Hogan and Mr. T have at Rowdy Roddy Piper and Paul (Mr. Wonderful) Orndorff. The show included Muhammad Ali as referee, New York Yankee manager Billy Martin as announcer, Liberace as timekeeper and the Rockettes from Radio City Music Hall.

Phil Knight

Illinois Breaks College Record In Drake Sprint Medley Relay A brilliant half-mile anchor leg by Jamaican George Kerr today gave Illinois' sprint medley relay team an American collegiate record of 3 minutes, 17.8 seconds. The race, high mark of the golden anniversary Drake Relays, had Illinois' baton men running this way: Del Coleman 440 yards, John Lattimore 220, Ward Miller 220 and Kerr 880.

My Two Dads

Two New NBC Comedy SeriesIn the category of just plain old premiere, NBC has My Two Dads, being introduced tomorrow night at 8:30, immediately after the popular Family Ties but up against the formidable CBS competition of Angela Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote. The plot of My Two Dads makes Mama's Boy seem like a well-made Ibsen play. Michael Jacobs is the executive producer and writer.

Two men in their 30's "“ one a suit-and-tie type with appointment book, the other a carefree, T-shirted artist "“ are summoned to a lawyer's office for a reading of a will. It seems that the former college roommates were once in love with the same young woman in Key West. She has died "“ the details are gently skipped over "“ and left her 12-year-old daughter in their care. It also seems that either of them could be the real father. You can just imagine the contrived fun.
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Meanwhile, the two dads are constantly bickering. Michael (Paul Reiser), the yuppie one, is a fretting mass of responsibility. Joey (Greg Evigan) is a bearded testimonial to unreliability. All would seem doomed, but there's a sitcom at stake here. Arguing about their old girlfriend, the dads suddenly realize: "Now that we're going to become fathers, why don't we become adults, too?" Well, perhaps just for a moment or two.

Mary Matalin

In Iowa, Republicans Who Pay Their Money Can Vote Their Choice At what they call "The 1987 Presidential Cavalcade of Stars," Iowa Republicans plan to raise a lot of money on Saturday night and give all the party's 1988 candidates a chance to set forth their messages. The gathering at the campus of Iowa State University in Ames has become the symbolic coming-out party for a campaign that has really been going on for months.

The event will mark the first time that Vice President Bush has agreed to appear on the same platform as his main adversaries, including such lesser challengers as the Rev. Pat Robertson and former Gov. Pierre S. du Pont 4th of Delaware.
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"We are kind of heartsick that they put on the straw ballot," said Mary Matalin, Mr. Bush's Midwest coordinator, while volunteers lettered Bush for President banners at 10:30 Thusday night amid pledge cards of Bush supporters who were being asked to make the trek. "This is the month we were putting together our precinct organization, which is far more important than driving six hours to Ames."

Mr. Bush is generally seen as the favorite on Saturday, even though the latest Des Moines Register poll put him neck-and-neck with Senator Bob Dole of Kansas among Iowa Republicans considered likely to attend next February's precinct caucuses. This is because Mr. Bush has deep organizational roots here that go back to his upset victory over Ronald Reagan in the 1980 caucuses.

David Ogilvy

Gallup Survey of the Audience Interest in Pictures Is Being Conducted for CompanyDr. George Gallup, head of the Institute of Public Opinion [has] been engaged to conduct a "scientific study of the motion picture public and the tastes, habits, and interests of picture patrons." He stated that the chief function of the new organization which Dr. Gallup will organize for this purpose will be to "scientifically assist and guide the studio in its selection of stories, casts and titles."

The new Gallup unit will be known as the Audience Research Institute and will conduct its surveys from headquarters in Princeton, NJ. He emphasized that the bureau is entirely separate from the Institute of Public Opinion, which now is making a survey on the double-feature question, and said it would operate solely in the interests of RKO films. David Ogilvy will direct the bureau.